Coppa Wrap as Totti Scores, Lazio Survive and Milan Go Home

By: Martha | January 18th, 2008

DDR loves Tottigols. [Sorry about the radio silence yesterday -- The Offside unexpectedly switched servers, which left a lot of us seeing error messages all day. I wrote most of this then, in between clicking "refresh" every 30 minutes.]

The order of Coppa Italia things was somewhat restored this week when Roma overturned a 1-3 first leg deficit against Torino with a 4-0 thrashing at home, keyed by the second-half arrival of one Francseco Totti, who wandered onto the pitch and scored a brace, cool as you like, including his 200th goal. (RomaChris liveblogged, and has all the goals.)

Way down in Sicily meanwhile, there was no order whatsoever as Carlo Ancelotti, already down an away goal in the tie, indicated his intention to punt the Coppa altogether by starting Kaka’s donkey of a brother in the center of his defense, even single one of whose appearances for the club has featured at least one spectacular error. And, while I’ve yet read anything that indicates Catania’s goal — a screamer from none other than Juan Manuel Vargas — was entirely Digao’s fault, I’m sure he was in the area when it happened. Milan’s goal came from primavera player Alberto Paloschi, and Yoann Gourcuff reportedly played well, so those are two positives Milan supporters can take away from the match. Oh, and Rino Gattuso managed to pick up two yellows in only 13 minutes, which is a certain kind of awesome.

In the other midweek matches:

Fiorentina dominated Serie B side Ascoli after a 1-1 first leg, but they left it late, waiting until the 72nd minute when Giampaolo Pazzini found his scoring boots and put them into the lead. The Princess doubled the lead just a few minutes later with a great turn and finish, and then, after the match, went after the press a little bit in his inimitable gracious style. (Apparently it’s their fault he can’t score. Who knew?)

Elsewhere, Palermo’s dire week continued with a 1-0 home loss to Udinese, a result that put them out after a scoreless first leg, while Samp took advantage of Cagliari’s awful defending to crush them 4-0 at home, overturning an 0-1 first-leg loss and then some.

And, yesterday, Inter’s primavera team — including, for 10 minutes, Roberto Mancini’s Cristiano Ronaldo-loving son — beat Reggina’s youngsters 3-0 at home to go through by the comfortable margin of 7-1, while Lazio narrowly kept the concept of “hope” alive in their camp by securing a 1-1 draw against Napoli which put them through to the quarters. (Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis ain’t happy.)

The quarters, starting next week (the draw for who is home first is today, I believe):

•Juve-Inter
•Lazio-Fiorentina
•Udine-Catania
•Roma-Samp (This time, Antonio Cassano’s tears are tears of joy. Presumably.)